Tag: movies

MOVIE REVIEW: Philomena

Steve Coogan co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Pope, based on Martin Sixsmith’s book, “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee.”

Philomena_posterI was watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart recently, and Steve Coogan was on talking about the movie Philomena. I must admit that I had no real idea who he was. When I was talking at work about the fact that The Wife and I gave the movie two thumbs up after we had seen it a couple of weekends ago at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, one of my colleagues said, “But doesn’t it star Steve Coogan?” After I confirmed this, she indicated that he always plays a real jerk in movies, particularly in some comedies I had never seen.

As “world-weary political journalist” Martin Sixsmith, Coogan’s character is more than a little arrogant as he lowers himself to investigate “the story of a woman’s search for her son, who was taken away from her decades ago after she became pregnant and was forced to live in a convent.” He finds the now-aging Philomena (Judi Dench) quite pedestrian. But during the journey to two continents, he develops a different relationship with her.

Coogan not only costars in the film, but he also co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Pope, based on Sixsmith’s book, “The Lost Child of Philomena Lee,” after he happened upon an article about the true story. AND he is a producer of the film.

Ever since I saw the film, I’ve wanted to extol its praises, including the fact that the trailer does not give away too much. But the less you know, the better your viewing experience will be. I will say the second half of the touching film is even better than the first, Dench and Coogan are very fine, at under 100 minutes it is efficiently made, and that a late American President figures prominently in the narrative.

OK, since the Academy Awards nominations were announced – it’s up for Best Picture and Dench for Best Actress – there’s been a debate whether the Church gets a pass; that, I think, is not the film I saw.

MOVIE REVIEW: Frozen

I predict there will be a Broadway version of Frozen by 2018.

It was a very rainy Sunday afternoon. The Wife, The Daughter and I were supposed to travel from Albany to near Binghamton for a family dinner, but the forecast for locations in between were dodgy, with snow and ice likely. Instead, we went out to lunch, and then to Colonie Center Mall to see the newish Disney animated film Frozen.

frozen1
Some bullet points:
*THIS FILM IS GORGEOUS. Continue reading “MOVIE REVIEW: Frozen”

MOVIE REVIEW: American Hustle

American Hustle is a very fine movie, about crime and ambition and loyalties.

Neither the Wife or I had not been to a movie designed for grownups since July. The autumn was WAY too busy for our liking, and we missed Gravity and Saving Captain Phillips, a couple of movies we might have otherwise seen. Finally, during Christmas break, we got a child sitter so we could go out to the Spectrum 8 Theatre in Albany.

Frankly, at that point, I would have seen ANY of the films playing there except The Hobbit (didn’t see the first one, so seeing the second in a trilogy made no sense.)

My spouse picked American Hustle. I knew little about this except that it featured some of the same folks from Silver Lings Playbook, actors Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and director David O. Russell, who also co-wrote this screenplay with Eric Warren Singer.

Do you remember ABSCAM? It was an FBI “sting operation… in the late 1970s and early 1980s.” American Hustle took the framework of that real event and made it into something else entirely. This couple (Christian Bale as Irving, whose combover should be nominated for something, and Amy Adams as Sydney, who was in Russell’s The Fighter) click as successful con artists until caught by the law and forced to work scams to entrap other bad guys by their overzealous FBI handler (Richie, played by Bradley Cooper.) What’s going on betwixt the gumshoe and the moll? Gumming things up further is Irving’s needy and largely abandoned wife, Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence, who almost steals the movie).

Without giving away too much, this is a very fine movie, about crime and ambition and loyalties, which is at least a couple of times laugh-out-loud funny at lines that, on paper, are not that humorous. Other great performances by Jeremy Renner as a New Jersey politician, and Louis CK as a mid-level FBI guy. De Niro plays that De Niro role, which is just fine for these purposes.

At least some of the critical complaints involve the fact that some of the characters have positive outcomes, which certainly doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing, given the complicated schemes and definite peril they find themselves in. In fact, the plot was occasionally SO convoluted, The Wife wasn’t always quite sure what was going on, which did not diminish from her enjoyment; I THINK I had it all figured out, eventually.

Rated R, but I’d say, in the grand scheme of American cinema, a soft R, in my book.

December Rambling: Affluenza; the folly of Facebook

“Bitching about what people post on social networks is rather like going to each individual table in your high school cafeteria and demanding that everyone at each table only discuss the topics you want to hear discussed.”

People don’t actually like creativity.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Why it’s lousy for the environment and food safety and US sovereignty, not to mention creators’ rights, and why you’ve probably never heard of it.

In this clip, Carl Sagan passionately defends science, with a grave warning.

Secessionists on the ballot.

I mentioned the FOCUS church’s long struggle to feed the hungry. Here’s a print news story and TV story about the cut in food stamps affecting local pantries.

Rev. Frank Schaefer was found guilty by The United Methodist Church for officiating at his son’s same-sex wedding; his response.

Teenager’s Sentence in Fatal Drunken-Driving Case Stirs ‘Affluenza’ Debate; my, when I saw this story on TV I got really ticked off. Will they also accept povertenza as a defense? Didn’t think so.

The former editor-in-chief at the New England Journal of Medicine believes it is no longer possible to believe much of clinical research published.

I didn’t write about that Duck Dynasty cable TV guy, mostly because of time, but also because I didn’t have a fresh angle. Arthur wrote about him, and about his reluctance to write about the issue at all, and it’s pretty much my position too.

How fashion can be used as camouflage from face-detection technology.

There’s a new film about Walt Disney and the making of the movie Mary Poppins: watch Harlan Ellison on “Saving Mr. Banks”. For another new film, Philomena, read this article from three years ago, The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, for background.

This Man Rescued Over 600 Jewish Kids from Nazi Camps. He Doesn’t Know It Yet, But He’s Sitting with Them.

So you’re feeling too fat to be photographed… And Pioneering Photographer Robert Cornelius Credited With World’s First Selfie, c. 1839.

If physical diseases were treated like mental illness.

Melanie: Reading, Russian, and the Soviet Union.

Sit Still, and Follow the Stick.

Always hated end-of-the-year lists that come out in early December, because the year isn’t over. Still, 45 powerful photos and NPR’s 100 favorite songs and the best and worst media errors and corrections and worst words and phrases and the Jibjab piece
what brought us together.

21st Century Punctuatio​n; this is a non-issue for me. The frontiers of American English usage involve Death Metal English.

Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults, and 5 Reasons To Stop Checking Facebook At Work.

Jaquandor: “Bitching about what people post on social networks is rather like going to each individual table in your high school cafeteria and demanding that everyone at each table only discuss the topics you want to hear discussed.” I agree with that. He also mentioned SamuraiFrog’s situation, linked therein.

Speaking of SF: 50 Shades of Smartass, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 and Chapter 7, which you should check out, even if you don’t read the others, because now the truly awful stuff is being eviscerated. Or wait until Chapter 8, when the sex stuff starts. Would someone who liked this book please write me and tell me why?

Books About Movies: XEROX FEROX: THE WILD WORLD OF THE HORROR FILM FANZINE by John Szpunar.

The status of Jaquandor’s Princesses In SPACE!!! (not the actual title).

The “radio call” of the miraculous Auburn win over Alabama, both a faux one and the real thing.

Another Kennedy Conspiracy Theory, involving a Superman comic book from around the time of JFK’s assassination, with a happy ending.

Don McGregor on Marvel Comics’ First Interracial Kiss.

Now I Know: rabbit show jumping and the history of flatulence humor.

Michael Feinstein talks about the Gershwins and play some of their tunes for an hour.

Tony Isabella’s birthday wish list.

Amy Biancolli has a new blog. She’s a writer for the local newspaper I’ve met once or twice. As she noted in her first post, ” In 2011, my beloved, brilliant husband, Chris, committed suicide. This left me and our three unbelievably spirited, beautiful children with a task ahead of us: to live.” So she’s FSO, Figuring Stuff Out, such as Things. Except she doesn’t say “stuff.”

Of all the noteworthy people who died this month – Ray Price, Eleanor Parker, Peter O’Toole, Joan Fontaine, Tom Laughlin – the only obit I link to is Harold Camping? OK, here’s one for Price, and for O’Toole.

Food Fight Muppet episode featuring Gordon Ramsey.

Mark Evanier has been blogging for thirty years! I didn’t even have Internet access at work TWENTY years ago.

Unexpected singers: Run Joe by Maya Angelou from the Miss Calypso album. And Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out by Richard Pryor.

Arthur answers my question about Maori representation in New Zealand government and religion and genealogy, among other things.

I wrote: 50 is the new 65, and not in a good way.

V is for Vulcan

I blame New York Erratic, and those ears, for this post about Vulcan.

When I was in fifth or sixth grade, I learned the word vulcanization. It had to do with a heat process involving the manufacturing of rubber tires, usually involving adding sulfur to the mix. The word was derived from Vulcan, the Roman god of fire, from which the word volcano also evolved.

Thus, I was somewhat confused when I started watching the original Star Trek television series. I was not a big enthusiast initially, but my father was. The first officer was a character named Spock, not to be confused with the then-famous pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock.

This Spock was part Vulcan and part earthling, AND he was FROM the planet Vulcan, which didn’t make a bit of linguistic sense to me at all. Someone from Venus is a Venusian, or a Martian is from Mars, and the fact that “Vulcan” was used as both the noun and the adjective bothered me somewhat.

I was not enough of a fan to know this: “Its inhabitants were originally called Vulcanians; a name used by Spock in the Original Series episode ‘A Taste of Armageddon’, by Federation colonists in ‘This Side of Paradise’ and by Harry Mudd in ‘Mudd’s Women’.” Now THAT makes much more sense.

Of course, that TV show lasted only three years (1966-1969), and that was that for Star Trek. Well, except for the animated series (1973-1974); four spinoff television series that ran from 1987 to 2005, sometimes concurrently; and a dozen films, starting in 1979, which has kept the Star Trek universe alive, if not most of the Vulcans. Or Vulcanians. (Is that a spoiler?)

(I blame New York Erratic, and those ears, for this post.)


ABC Wednesday – Round 13

Ramblin' with Roger
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